Biography:
Dr. Matthews earned a Ph.D. in applied mathematics from North Carolina State University in 2010. Her research interests focus on models of physical and biological phenomenon, the underlying mathematical principles, and the associated uncertainty quantification methodologies. Prior to her current position she supported efforts of the Earth Observing System at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD and worked as a biomathematician modeling agents under study by the National Toxicology Program in RTP, NC. Dr. Matthews has been at the North Carolina Institute for Climate Studies (NCICS) in Asheville, NC since 2010. Here she studies a number of climatological variables and applications including innovative use of vegetation climate data records and research in the retrieval of atmospheric temperature and humidity profile data from long-term satellite observations.

Title:
Mathematics in Climate Science

Abstract:
Mathematics shows up in all aspects of climate science, from dataset production through extrapolation to future scenarios. The world’s largest active archive of weather and climate data, NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), is located in Asheville, NC. In this talk we will detail several research applications leveraged from data holdings in this massive archive. In particular we will highlight: the mathematics of deriving climate measurements from satellite observations; a project using vegetation data to analyze annual start-of-springtime dates; and using mathematical models to estimate when sea ice will disappear from the Arctic.